Geenheart Games Solution to Piracy

Just a few days ago I read a startling post by Patrick from Greenheart Games stating
some startling statistics from their latest game release “Game Dev
Tycoon”. In the article, Patrick explains an experiment that Greenheart
conducted on the day of the PC ported release of the game involving
baiting pirates to illegally download a purposely leaked version of the
game containing a slight change in the story and a tracking code sending
anonymous data to Greenheart servers. After the first day, the results
were simply jaw-dropping, with 93.6% of all copies of the game being
cracked and only 6.4% having actually purchased the game. This was
especially surprising because of the extremely cheap price of the game
on stores like Steam and the Windows Store of only $8 USD.

In late 2014 the CEO of Ubisoft games gave an interview to Gamespot
regarding a similar study with Ubisoft games which gave remarkably
similar results. A grand total of 95% of all Ubisoft games being played
have been cracked versus purchased through legal stores and
marketplaces. The list goes on, and on through nearly all major game and
software companies like Adobe, EA Games, and many more.

So what does this mean for the software industry? Well, there are two
very different stories here when we’re talking about companies trying
to stay afloat. Smaller companies made up of no more than 5-10 members
could very easily go bankrupt after their first or second release.
Bigger companies with well-established products are a whole different
story because they have access to major server banks and all the latest
encryption. While smaller companies cannot afford to make massively
multiplayer games, bigger companies have the resources available to make
software online and thus not able to be pirated.

Here are some example of Online VS Locally run Softwares

Can be Pirated (Locally Run)

Cannot be Pirated (Run Online)

Games

Minecraft

Battlefield

General Software

Microsoft Office

Google Docs

Because the user must have a valid copy of the game these online
games seem to be the perfect solution to the piracy problem, Right?
Well, like I said earlier servers are expensive and small startups can’t
possibly afford to produce games of the scale and complexity required
to have an online setup. Meaning that this makes it extremely difficult
for small game developers to be successful.

In the end, while piracy may be convenient now, it will sooner or
later come back to haunt us when even the Major corporations still
struggle to break even with the costs of producing such technological
marvels.

What to see what the Secret Change in the Cracked version of Game Dev Tycoon? Watch this video or read this article.

By Kyle Piira

I'm a computer science student at the University of Massachusetts and the founder of the Hoxly Corporation.